The American Song Treasury by Theodore Raph

Author:Theodore Raph [Raph, Theodore]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780486171333
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2012-07-17T16:00:00+00:00

STATES ADMITTED TO THE UNION

AFTER THE BALL 1892

THIS WAS NOT ONLY THE SONG SENSATION OF THE YEAR 1892 BUT IT WAS THE FIRST BIG HIT in the pop tune field, having sold over a million copies. It was a time when in Benjamin Harrison’s last year of the presidency America was teeming with activity, both great and small. Immigration was at a high point, Thomas Edison patented the forerunner of the movie camera, Tschaikowsky opened Carnegie Hall, women organized for the right to vote, industrial empires were being born, P.T. Barnum died, Chicago held a World’s Fair, the game of basketball was just invented, and the popular music industry was just getting started.

Charles K. Harris, the composer of this song, was the first big time songwriter, although “After the Ball” was only the second song he had published. A former pawnbroker, bellhop, and banjo player, Harris witnessed two quarreling lovers leave separately after a dance in Chicago, and the scene gave him the idea for the phrase “many an aching heart after the ball.” He published the song himself and managed to get a well-known singer to perform it in the highly successful show A Trip To Chinatown. The song was so enthusiastically received that one publisher offered him $10,000 for it, and orders for copies kept pouring in. John Phillip Sousa featured this song at the World’s Fair in Chicago. Parodies were invented, and to date the song has sold over five million copies. “After the Ball” was also popular in Great Britain, so much so that when Britons heard it was an American tune they could hardly believe it. Most people know only the chorus, but the three verses (each twice as long as the chorus) bear the key to the story.

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